Longevity and Weight Loss of Free-flying Male Cecropia Moths, \u3ci\u3eHyalophora Cecropia\u3c/i\u3e (Lepidoptera: Saturniidae)

During their spring flight season, free-ranging male cecropia moths lived a maximum of 12 days (one of 124 recaptured moths of 387 released moths). The number of survivors declined precipitiously after day five; five to seven days is probably the usual life span. The recaptured moths did not have different initial weights than those that were not recaptured. The larger the moth the more absolute weight it lost and the faster it lost weight during the first few days. A moth lost about 20% of its weight during the first night of flight and accumulated about a 40% weight loss during the remainder of its life

Sex Determination in Chelydra

T HE SEX OF AN INDIVIDUAL is a fundamental trait, determining (in animals) whether sperm or eggs are transmitted to form the next generation and thus the pattern of genetic contribution. At the same time, a panoply of behavioral, physiological, and morphological traits intrinsically linked to gonadal sex shape the specific phenotypes of individuals and hence the dynamics of populations. Furthermore, mechanisms of sex determination greatly influence the primary sex ratio and potentially the population sex ratio and effective population size, which are important ecological and evolutionary parameters. Indeed, Fisher (1930) demonstrated that under most circumstances 1:1 primary sex ratios are expected and sexdetermining mechanisms that produce such balanced sex ratios should be favored by selection (see also Bull 1983)

Joining Inventory by Parataxonomists with DNA Barcoding of a Large Complex Tropical Conserved Wildland in Northwestern Costa Rica

BACKGROUND: The many components of conservation through biodiversity development of a large complex tropical wildland, Area de Conservacion Guanacaste (ACG), thrive on knowing what is its biodiversity and natural history. For 32 years a growing team of Costa Rican parataxonomists has conducted biodiversity inventory of ACG caterpillars, their food plants, and their parasitoids. In 2003, DNA barcoding was added to the inventory process. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We describe some of the salient consequences for the parataxonomists of barcoding becoming part of a field biodiversity inventory process that has centuries of tradition. From the barcoding results, the parataxonomists, as well as other downstream users, gain a more fine-scale and greater understanding of the specimens they find, rear, photograph, database and deliver. The parataxonomists also need to adjust to collecting more specimens of what appear to be the "same species"--cryptic species that cannot be distinguished by eye or even food plant alone--while having to work with the name changes and taxonomic uncertainty that comes with discovering that what looked like one species may be many. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These career parataxonomists, despite their lack of formal higher education, have proven very capable of absorbing and working around the additional complexity and requirements for accuracy and detail that are generated by adding barcoding to the field base of the ACG inventory. In the process, they have also gained a greater understanding of the fine details of phylogeny, relatedness, evolution, and species-packing in their own tropical complex ecosytems. There is no reason to view DNA barcoding as incompatible in any way with tropical biodiversity inventory as conducted by parataxonomists. Their year-round on-site inventory effort lends itself well to the sampling patterns and sample sizes needed to build a thorough barcode library. Furthermore, the biological understanding that comes with barcoding increases the scientific penetrance of biodiversity information, DNA understanding, evolution, and ecology into the communities in which the parataxonomists and their families are resident

A Craniometric Analysis of Basque Skulls from the Cathedral of Santa Maria, Vitoria-Gasteiz: Biological Distance and Population History

The origins and uniqueness of the Basque have long puzzled anthropologists and other scholars of human variation. Straddling the border between France and Spain, Basque country is home to a people genetically, linguistically and culturally distinct from neighboring populations. The craniometrics of a burial population from a Basque city were subjected to cluster analysis to identify the pattern of relationships between Spanish Basques and other populations of the Iberian Peninsula, Europe, and the world. Another method of affinity assessment &mdash discriminant function analysis &mdash was employed to classify each individual cranium into one population from among a wide array of groups in a worldwide craniometric database.In concert with genetic and linguistic studies, craniometric analyses find Basques are distinct among Iberian and European populations, with admixture increasing in the modern era. Basque populations from different provinces show marked heterogeneity, including variable sexual dimorphism. Population history and linguistic studies suggest this heterogeneity is reinforced as much by cultural and linguistic practices as by geographical isolation. Individual identification using discriminant function analysis found a suggestive relationship with North Africa for Iberian and Basque populations that began before the 800&ndashyear occupation of Iberia by North African Moors, Arabs and Berbers. While the ultimate origins of the Basque remain a mystery, their physical, genetic and linguistic characteristics suggest ancient western European roots for this population

When the Worst Imaginable Becomes Reality: The Experience of Child Custody Loss in Mothers Recovering from Addictions

This article describes findings from a qualitative study that investigated the lived experiences of four mothers recovering from crack cocaine addictions who lost custody of their children. The project was guided by feminist interpretive inquiry, van Manen’s approach to hermeneutic phenomenology, and involved thematic analysis of in depth interview data. By telling the stories of these women and using their own words as well as interpretive poetry written by one of the authors to describe their suffering, our research offers important insights to professionals involved in the field of addictions

Retraction Note: An apoptosis-enhancing drug overcomes platinum resistance in a tumour-initiating subpopulation of ovarian cancer.

This Article has been retracted; see accompanying Retraction Note